Adalbert (Dux)

Adalbert (* around 665 ; † 723 in Odilienberg ) was a Frankish nobleman and the fourth known duke in Alsace under the rule of the Merovingians . He belonged to the Alsatian ducal dynasty of the Etichones, named after his predecessor, and was the father of St. Attala of Strasbourg .

Live and act

origin

Adalbert was born as the eldest son of the Alsatian Duke Eticho , who came from the Burgundian people and was wealthy and influential as Dux in the Pagus Attoriensis , the area between Dijon and Langres , before he took over the ducal dignity of Alsace. His great-grandfather Amalgar was one of the most powerful representatives of the aristocracy in Burgundy and through his great-grandmother Aquilina, the daughter of Duke Waldelenus , there was a direct relationship with the Burgundian noble family, which in the following two centuries was to rise as a clan of the Waltriche to one of the most influential families in the Franconian Empire . According to the records of the Ebersheimmünster monastery, the Chronicon Ebersheimense , his mother, Bertswinda (also Berswinda) was a niece of St. Leodegar von Autun and sister Chimnechilds, the wife of the Austrasian king Sigibert III.

The name given to the duke's son followed the custom, which was common in the early Middle Ages, of forming the sons name of the firstborn with a combination of the parents' names - Adalbert got his name from the combination of the first member of his father's name Adal (-ricus) with the first member of the mother's name Bert ( -swinda).

Adalbert was a brother of St. Odilia , the patron saint of Alsace and eyesight who is still venerated today .

County and rule as a duke

After being appointed Dux des Alsace, Eticho cleverly exploited the political turmoil in the late phase of the Merovingian rule to transform the ducate's leadership, which had been personal until then, and which required the king's appointment, into a quasi-independent and family-inherited ducal rule.

The office of Comes or Count , who, in contrast to the Dux, did not have a military task but exclusively the management function of the administration, was included in Eticho's transformation policy. If the Rodebert and Erich Comites, which are certainly not part of the ducal family, are proven for the early days of the etichonic house, the office was always given to the duke's first-born son in the following years. Accordingly, Adalbert is also in a diploma from Theuderich III. First mentioned in a document on February 9, 683 as Comes des Sundgau - his appointment obviously served to bring him closer to the administrative processes of the duchy and to prepare him for the successor to his father in the office of duke.

When Eticho died on February 20, 690, the ducal dignity in the etichonic self-image passed to Adalbert; in the contemporary sources there is a participation of Theuderich III. or his overpowering caretaker Pippin on the elevation to the Dux has not passed on anything.

In contrast to his father's rulership, which was mainly concentrated on Upper Alsace and in particular the region around the Odilienberg, Adalbert increasingly turned to the Nordgau in order to fully assert the ducal power of the Etichones there. From where Adalbert ruled his duchy in the north can no longer be determined from the few surviving testimonies; the founding of a monastery and the creation of a new suburbium in today's Koenigshoffen district, however, point to the region around Strasbourg .

For the last time as Dux, Adalbert is documented for June 722 as part of a donation for the foundation of the Hohenaugia monastery ; Research generally assumes that Adalbert died in the course of the year 723, as his sons donated the inherited property of their father as early as December of the year in which the monastery was founded. According to the Vitae Odiliae, which of course did not come into being until the middle of the 9th century, Adalbert was murdered by a vengeful servant in his ducal residence on Mount Odile.

St. Stephen's Monastery and Honau Abbey

Former monastery church of St. Stephanus

Around the year 700 Adalbert founded inside the walls of Strasbourg on ducal estate a St. Stephen consecrated nunnery ; he made his daughter Attala the first abbess . The abbey, modeled on the Hohenburg monastery , was so richly endowed by its founder that it became one of the wealthiest in Alsace. The choir of the monastery church also served as a burial place for the Adalbert family - he himself was buried on the right, his two wives and his daughters Liutgard and Savina buried on the left.

In addition to St. Stephanus and the Odilienberg and Ebersmünster abbeys founded by his father , Adalbert paid particular attention to the Hohenaugia monastery . Around 720 he gave a group of Irish monks permission to found an abbey on a now submerged Rhine island, just 25 kilometers north of Strasbourg, and richly endowed the facility with property rights in the urban area of ​​Strasbourg. In the first phase of the Irish Scottish mission, the monastery served as a starting point for wandering monks and, through the veneration of the relics of St. Brigida von Kildare brought from Ireland, promoted the Christianization of the Alsatian north. In addition, Adalbert pursued with the settlement of Irish monks, who enjoyed high esteem for their gift of cultivating inhospitable areas, also the purpose of making the areas around Honau Abbey arable and thus opening up the Duke's pursuit of economic profit.

Marriage and offspring

Adalbert's first marriage was to Gerlindis , the daughter of Duke Eudo of Aquitaine . There were six children from this marriage:

• Liutfrid (* around 700; † 743), who succeeded his father as duke
• Eberhard († 747 in Remiremont ), Count in Sundgau
• Maso, founder of Masmünster Abbey ( Masevaux )
• Attala (* around 690; † December 3, 741 in Strasbourg), first abbess of St. Stephen in Strasbourg and Catholic saint
• Eugenia († December 16, 735 in Odilienberg), second abbess of the Hohenburg monastery
• Gundlinda († after 720 in Niedermünster), first abbess of the Niedermünster monastery and saint of the Catholic Church

From the second marriage with Bathildis the daughters Liutgard and Savina were born.

literature

• Horst Ebeling: Prosopography of the officials of the Merovingian Empire from Chlotar II (613) to Karl Martell (741) in: Beihefte der Francia, Volume 2, Munich 1974, pp. 28-29.
• Nicole Hammer: The foundations of the Etichonen monasteries in Alsace. Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2003, ISBN 3-8288-8509-8 .
• Karl Weber: The formation of Alsace in the Regnum Francorum , in: Archeology and History, Volume 19. Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7995-7369-6 .
• AM Burg: The Alsatian Duchy - an overview , in: Journal for the History of the Upper Rhine Volume 117.Braun, Karlsruhe 1969, pp. 87, 90, 94.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl Weber: The formation of Alsace in the Regnum Francorum , in: Archeology and History, Volume 19. Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7995-7369-6 , p. 118
2. ↑ Johann Daniel Schöpflin: Alsatia ... diplomatica; Volume I, Typographia académica. Mannheim 1172, Dipl. V
3. ↑ Vita Odiliae Abatissae Hohenburgensis in Bruno Krusch , Wilhelm Levison (ed.): Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 6: Passiones vitaeque sanctorum aevi Merovingici (IV). Hannover 1913, p. 48 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
4. ^ Philippe-André Grandidier: Histoire de l'Eglise et des évêques princes de Strasbourg; depuis la fondation de l'évêché jusqu'à l'an 965, volume I. Levrault, Strasbourg 1776, p. 395